Stand Too Close, You Might Fall In
by Virgoleo23
Summary: "How the chiz did this happen?" she asked.  I chuckled slightly at that.   "Hey, that's what I get for standing too close. I was bound to fall in sometime, eh?"


**A/N:Okay, so here's that new story I promised you. It took a month in the making, so I hope you all like it. I don't know if it's any good, probably not my best work, but I'm pretty proud of it, and you know, one day I might shake my oneshot addiction and write a multichapter fic. So review please! And this is not a song fic, but was inspired by the amazing song 'Stand Too Close'. Google it, it's worth it. On to the Story!**

**Disclaimer: Dan Schneider is too busy to be writing Fanfiction for his own show. So I must not be Dan Schneider. Thus, I do not own iCarly.  
**

"I'm finishing the rest of your smoothie."

"Oh, are you now?"

"Uh-huh."

"_Really?_" I quirked an eyebrow, feeding into her ploy.

"Yup. Now _give!_"

"You know...I don't think I will."

"You lost me at '_I don't think.'_" I rolled my eyes. She wouldn't be Sam without that touch of condescension to really brighten up my day.

"Sarcasm not appreciated."

"Good," she smirked, "that means it's working." And _there_ it is...

"Oh, soo mature, Puckett."

"Hypocrite." She blew the bangs away from her eyes, obviously aggravated with me. As it should be.

"Just give me the smoothie already and I'll leave you alone. Well, mostly." A semi-devious smirk twitched itself onto her face.

"But I just bought you a smoothie and you haven't even touched it yet."

"Yeah, well you shouldn't have gotten me the Mango Mambo Medley."

"Why not? What do you have against medleys of mangoes?"

"Nothing, except these mangoes smell like they've mamboed two weeks past their expiration date." She waited for my counter, but I only took another long sip, just to bug her.

"Uggh, here just trade with me." And like the seasoned ninja she convinced Spencer she was, she yanked the Strawberry Splat across the tabletop, leaving the straw dangling from my mouth.

"What? No, gross Sam. I'm not drinking your rotten mango juice." I grabbed her wrist, asserting my rights to the stolen beverage. Her eyes widened slightly as I tried to pull her arm back within smoothie-sipping distance of me. I felt her pulse speed up under my grasp.

If I caught her off guard, she must have recovered from it, because she immediately yanked the smoothie back across the table, more than willing to play tug-of-war with me.

"Just go get another Splat, dorkwad. I'm sure you still have plenty of birthday money saved in that little jewelery box of yours." She smirked, bringing her gaze up from the drink to meet mine. The light from the window was reflecting off of her eyes, and was directed right at my face. I don't know if it was intentional or not, but before I had time to react, the blazing blue of her eyes was literally blinding.

"Ah." I winced away, releasing the smoothie, and causing some of it's contents to spill. She steadied the drink, confusion making its way onto her features.

"Dude-"

"Nothing. The light just got in my eyes."

"From the bathroom?-"

"-and for your information, _Puckett_, I no longer have a jewelery box _and_ that money was from Daka. Not all of us blow our cash on expensive personal chefs."

"Hey, Sonja was awesome! I can't help it if her prices were more ridiculous than her Blubbery Muffins."

"They were good muffins."

"Yeah... I heard she's got her own Food Network Show now."

"Uh-huh. _Muffin Stuffin: Fillings For Every Occasion."_

"I miss her."

"Me too."

She suddenly seemed to notice the smoothie that was dribbling down her arm onto the table. She stared at it for a few seconds and then glanced up at me, smiling. I didn't need x-ray vision to see the wheels turning under that head of blonde hair. I knew exactly what she wanted. She wanted me to get up and go fetch her a napkin so she could suck down the rest of my smoothie before I got back. And probably blame me for it anyway. No way, nuh-uh. Not gonna happen. Period.

"Fred-"

"No." I quipped. I cut her off so concisely that she didn't even argue. Not to say that she gave up, though. No, not by a long shot.  
Being best friends with two girls has its advantages. They always seemed to know how I'm feeling and what I need, even when I don't know myself, and mostly when I just want some space. They both knew me more than my own mother (don't you _ever_ tell her though). But I'd be lying to say that they only used their powers for good.

Either of them could override my willpower within seconds, and before I knew it, I'd be carrying shopping bags through the mall all day or shelling out $150 for three tickets to the Mega Major MMA and Monster Truck Mashup.  
Carly had the 'Please, for me?' smile.  
Sam had The Pout.

The Pout. It was enough to take any grown man to his knees and make him beg for mercy. Not that Sam couldn't do that anyway. But Carly told her that performing Flying Piledrivers in public was violent and rude. And threatened withholding the Shay family ham. So The Cursed Pout was rearing its ugly head more and more often these days.

It started with the eyes. She blinked them a few times until they got nice and watery, and opened them really wide; staring out at you under long, black lashes like a puppy you just kicked.  
Then she would muster up the most injured sigh she could offer and tilt her head down, hunching up her shoulders slightly for effect.  
And lastly, if she hadn't already got you relinquishing all willpower and groveling at her feet, she would puff out her lower lip the slightest bit. If you blinked, you'd miss it. But it was enough to hotwire your conscience and set you off to Jupiter, the moon, Wisconsin, or anywhere and do anything, anything at all, to put a smile back on that face.

Including fetching napkins.  
Damn.

She let me take back my smoothie and set it on the table in front of her. I couldn't carry it with me because T-Bo had just started mopping the floor. And by his rules, 'You spill it, you swab it.' Meaning that if as so much as a drop of smoothie spilled on his freshly cleaned floor, I'd spend the next twenty minutes mopping, scrubbing and polishing it to his liking. And probably the rest of the Groovie Smoothie too. I snapped the top onto my drink.

"Promise you won't drink my smoothie?"  
She kept silent.

"Sam..."

"I promise, dork, that as long as this smoothie cup is in existence, its nubby little rim shall remain ever free of my mouth."

"It better if you're betting on getting any ribs from T-Bo."

"Whatever, dork."  
Satisfied, I walked towards the napkin dispenser, keeping one eye on my smoothie at all times. My stare didn't seem to affect her. She smiled back brightly, and applied some raspberry lip balm.  
Yes.  
I had to turn my back for a second to grab the napkins, and if the straw had any traces of purple gloss on it, she'd be caught. I whipped around, snatched the napkin dispenser and yanked out half the supply before jerking my head back around. She wasn't drinking my smoothie.  
I did notice that the straw was missing, but I could only expect Sam to steal my straw as revenge for denying her my smoothie rights. I walked back to her, she did appear to be drinking her Mango smoothie, she had a straw in her mouth. She removed the straw and set it on the table as I came back.

"Thanks Fredhead," she snapped up the napkins and mopped up the stickiness.

"No problem" I smiled, satisfied. I had finally bested her. That's Sam 4363956, Freddie 2. I picked up my smoothie, fully ready to revel in my fruity victory beverage. It was half empty.

That sneaky blonde demon.

I snapped off my drink lid, half the liquid was gone, and there was a puncture wound in the side of the cup. She had speared my smoothie with her straw and sucked down as much as she could before I came back. All without breaking her promise.  
I glance up at her.

"Really, Sam? Must you always look for the loopholes in life?" Her laugh that followed sounded suspiciously like a giggle.

"Dude, I am the loophole."

"Ain't that the truth." Because really, she is. No one else in this dimension could bully me the way she does and still have me wrapped around her finger. I probably would have ended up giving her the smoothie anyway.  
I motion for her to give me the straw, which she passes to me.

"Why couldn't you just use your straw anyway?"

"It was infected with mango sludge."  
I slipped the straw into my drink and polished off what little there was left of it. Not at all aware of the fact that she had previously been drinking from the same straw. Or that my mouth tasted like raspberries, even after finishing the rest of my Strawberry Splat. Or that I really, _really_ liked the taste of raspberries.

I was about to suggest we leave when I felt a hand press to my shoulder and heard a husky, overly-sultry voice grate against my eardrums.

"Heyyy stranger."  
Oh shhhh...ish kabob.  
Sam's face soured up like T-Bo just squirted lemon juice at her with a water gun.  
Natalie.  
She walked slowly around me to face my front, trailing her hand across my shoulders in the meantime. One of her cronies quickly shoved a convenient stool within her reach, and she sat down well within kissing distance of me, keeping one arm wrapped around my shoulder the whole time.

"I didn't see you at school yesterday" she breathed, inching closer, oblivious to the fact that I was simultaneously inching back.

"Yeah, I uh..had this thing to do with... um Shane. AV stuff." Only if Shane was Sam. And if 'AV stuff' meant darting around corners and under bleachers at the command of my blonde scout, trying the utmost to avoid the brunette predator. Then yeah, it was sort of true.

"All day?" she purred, batting her lashes vigorously. It was a wonder that they were still attached to her eyelids at all.

"Yeah."  
You see, Natalie was this girl who'd hooked up with every guy in the entire school at one time or another. Except for me. You see where this is going? So we had like two months of school left before graduation, and Natalie was a senior to my sophomore. So she had gotten it into her head that it was crucial to her 'legacy' that she get with every last guy in Ridgeway High before she left for college. At least, whatever college would accept Natalie Anderson.

I shifted my eyes over to Sam. _Help me._  
She raised an eyebrow.  
_Please?_  
She huffed, annoyed at having to interact with Sleep-With-Me Barbie over here.  
_You owe me. _  
But don't I always?  
She stood up. "Dude, back off the nub. He's not interested."  
Natalie wrenched her gaze from my mouth long enough to size Sam up. This was going to be a bloodbath. If I wasn't stationed between the two girls, perhaps on the other side of the restaurant, behind a Plexiglass shield, with popcorn, then I would have been thoroughly entertained by what took place next.

"Really, he isn't? And what's it to you _sophmore_?" She must have wanted to die. Only suicidal people talk to Sam Puckett that way.

"None of your bee's cheese, slut." It's nice to see that Sam's controlling her temper, although I could see her chanting Carly's warnings against Flying Piledrivers in her head. Because I doubt The Pout would have worked on Natalie.

The other girl studied Sam for a second, almost impressed, and realization dawned on her face after a moment.

"Oh, I get it now. You're his little girlfriend aren't you?" she smirked. "Afraid I'm going to steal him away?" I saw Sam's fists clench.

"We're best friends actually. But you just get one thing through that thick skull of yours 'kay? Mama is the _only_ one allowed to torture the nub. No one else. And having your clingy arms all wrapped around him looks pretty darn painful."

Natalie laughed scornfully and shook her head.

"Aw, you're jealous. Well what are _you_ going to do about it?"

Sam's eye twitched slightly. I could see her strain against herself, scrounging up every last scrap of willpower to keep from bashing Natalie's head in. Come on Sam, NO FLYING PILEDRIVERS! REMEMBER WHAT CARLY SAID!

"You want to know what I'm gonna do about it?" she asked through gritted teeth. Her eyes darted to the front of Natalie's shirt, and then back to the mango sludge on the table. She smiled.

I had wondered what she was going to do with the rest of that smoothie anyway.

"Really, Sam? Did you have to get us kicked out of there?"  
We were walking down the sidewalk that ran perpendicular to the Groovy Smoothie. Her hand was latched firmly around my wrist, not in a romantic way, more possessive. Like she was claiming her territory and warning any Natalies that might be afoot to back the chiz off.

"Of course I did, dorkwad. And you should be thanking me. I did just save you your virtue back there." I snorted at that.

"Not that I would have given it to her anyway. But you seemed pretty riled up by her, would there be any particular reason..."

"-Oh no you don't, Benson. We're not getting into that conversation right now. I refuse to allow any awkwardness before I've gotten my revenge." That confused me slightly, I turned to look at her.

"But didn't you get your revenge on Natalie already? With that thing with the smoothie-"

"-I'm not talking about Natalie. She won't be coming back for more. I mean T-Bo, dude! We got banned for a whole week! Do you even _know_ what a week without smoothies can do to me?"  
No. No I did not. But she glared at the ground before pulling me around to the back of the restaurant-cafe thing. What type of store is the GS anyway?

"Let's go" she gritted.  
I was led over to a large eighteen-wheeler parked by the back door. There was a hefty padlock secured on the trailer doors. They really need to start Puckett-proofing those things.  
We heaved the doors aside to reveal a large delivery of fresh fruit. Unattended.

Sam motioned for me to help her with the crates. After a few minutes, we had them all unloaded on the pavement.

"So...now what?" I asked. I knew it couldn't be good, I just wanted to know what _it_ was. She grinned.

"Now, we smash." And with that descriptive explanation, she kicked over the nearest tower of produce crates,sending fruit rolling every which way. She stomped and kicked and somehow found a brick randomly lying around, she wreaked havoc with that thing. Poor brick.  
I was kind of just standing there. This was illegal wasn't it? It was immoral. I should be stopping her. But she was having so much fun. She interrupted my internal battle by tugging firmly on my hand.

"Come on, Fredward. I checked the fruit out. Most of it was rotten anyway, you'll be doing a favor to the patrons of this place by disposing of it." I sighed, willpower crumbling even before The Pout could appear, and tried not to think of what I'd been sucking down at the GS all these years. I heaved a crate of rancid mangoes over onto the pavement, figuring she'd want to destroy the source of the nasty Mango Mambo Medley that wasted three perfectly good bucks of my cash. You know, the cash that she stole.

It was a pretty good stress reliever, crushing the guts out of rotten fruit. I let my thoughts wander to my frustrated feelings towards a certain blonde demon as I pulverized a couple of oranges. She looked so content there, obliterating a batch of blueberries. Why screw that up? I let out my aggravation on the nearest group of kiwis. The worst part was that I knew she felt it too. We'd both grown steadily closer over the years, eventually hanging out more often than not without Carly. My feelings had somehow changed from blatant loathing to friendship, and then to caring about the blonde delinquent more than I would have liked to. I knew she felt at least somewhat the same. All the little looks and taunts and signals added up, she had made it known that in her own personal way, she cared for me just as much. So why hadn't we confronted it already?  
I smashed absent-mindedly at a box of generic fruit.

Because we're both damn cowards. We're too scared to face the music, even though it's obviously there. I looked over at Sam, she had finished her mango homicide and was now finger-painting graffiti all over the tarmac with the juices. Is that the girl I want? She turned to me and flashed the most gorgeous toothy grin before yanking me down to play with her in the fruit sludge. Hell yes she is.

We finished our little mission, and stood back to admire our handiwork. We were enjoying ourselves so much, it made my heart swell up into my throat, and I opened my mouth to say something. I don't know what I would have said if the cops hadn't shown up at that exact minute to throw us both in jail.

"You're in for six hours. Your families have been notified and will arrive shortly to pay your bail. You'll get out when your time is up. Rules are up on that wall. Don't break them if you ever want to get out of here." And with those gruff words, the warden sauntered off, twirling her baton.

We were seated in adjacent cells, a wide-barred wall separating us. The prisoners in my cell were rough, burly dudes who had probably robbed a convenience store on the way to jail. I scanned the poster on the wall, reading the rules. No drugs, no suicide, no physical contact. Well that shouldn't be a problem. There was no way I was going anywhere near those thugs.  
Too bad they didn't have the same idea.

"'Ey, you. Little guy, what'cha in for?" I figured if I told them I got arrested for smashing fruit, I'd suffer the net six hours listening to them laugh their guts out.

"Wha? Oh, umm vandalism." I managed. His eyebrows raised

"Vand'lism eh? Didn't look like you had it in ya." He turned to his cellmates and laughed. "But it's always the little ones, eh guys?" They chuckled along like it was some sort of inside joke. I have no idea what they were talking about, they were all as big as linebackers.

"Hey, kid. Looks like your lady friend over there wants'a talk to youse," one of them said. I think he was drunk.

I turned to Sam. I was anxious for anything to get me away from the Seattle mafia over there. She looked up at me, apparently waiting for my reaction to being stuck in jail because of her master plan for vengeance.

"Looks like you've done it this time, Puckett." She looked a little stunned at that. I think she was expecting a much larger, more frantic reaction. But I'd learned from my years of hanging with her that freaking out would never help anything.

"Dude, what up? You should be hyperventilating by now, rocking back and forth in the fetal position." I rolled my eyes at that.

"I may just have more stamina than you think, being around you all the time."  
She exhaled, walking up to the bars and motioning me over too.

"I don't get it Frednub. Why do you stick around when I get you into stuff like this? You'd be much better off sitting at home watching the Hygiene Channel right now."  
I took a risk and swept a stray strand of hair behind her ear. Maybe it was time to face this.

"I disagree. And you know why." She took less of a risk and reached out to ruffle my hair. I took that as a good sign, looks like she wanted to confront this too. She sighed.

"Yeah, I think I do. But how the chiz did it happen? How'd a dork like you get that way about your sworn tormentor, bully, demon, or any other things I can't think of right now?"  
I chuckled slightly at that.

"Hey, that's what I get for standing too close. I was bound to fall in sometime, eh?" I raised an eyebrow slightly and wrapped my hands around the bars between us.

"And I wouldn't say I fell for any of those things." I softened my gaze at her. "I fell for my best friend, and I'm sick of pretending that I didn't." She was quiet a second as she took that in.

"And you're sure you're not talking about Carly here?"

"Positive." Because Carly was the furthest thing from my mind right now.  
She laughed quietly at the seriousness of my tone. "You dork," she let out before pulling my head in to kiss me through the bars. If we weren't separated by an eight foot length of solid iron, her arms would have been wrapped around my neck, and mine around her waist. But I was more than content to rest my hands on her hips while she held the back of my head to her with one hand and the side of my face with another. Heh, more like overjoyed.

I couldn't help but marvel that even though we were both covered in smashed fruit, I could only taste raspberries. And I _really_ like the taste of raspberries.

We came up for air after a minute, ignoring the cat calls of the prisoners behind us. Sam could have yelled at them, but we found our mouths otherwise occupied. It felt so good to kiss her, all the awkwardness of the fire escape long gone, and the wait just made it better.  
Kissing Carly was nothing like this. I felt satisfied then, but now …I'm practically melting out of my skin. That sounds really girly doesn't it?  
I don't think she even realizes exactly how much she affects me. If I met every other girl in just short of this universe, I would never find another Sam Puckett. We're both royally messed up, and that somehow makes us work. In a really weird, totally fitting for us way. I don't need a carbon-copy Natalie, she doesn't want an airhead jock. Huh, the dork and the bully. Whodathunkit?

I was interrupted from my my thoughts as the loud clanging of metal on metal jolted our faces apart.

"HEY! Cut it out you two! Read the sign, NO PHYSICAL CONTACT. Try that again and I'll tack another hour onto your time." The warden was practically purple in the face. Sam looked amused.

"Aw, go back to your cats, you lonely old witchbag!" I think the warden was practically seething at that point.

"THAT'S IT, I'M HOLDING YOU 'TIL MORNING. AND CUT THAT OUT UNLESS YOU WANT TO BE HERE ALL DAY TOMORROW TOO!" And with that, she stomped off, grumbling.

I turned my attention back to Sam. She smirked deviously before leaning in. Great, now she's found another way to override my willpower. She didn't even need The Pout to get me to lean forward to meet her.

We were never going to get out of here at this rate.

**Hope you enjoyed that, it was my longest fic yet. And if you are a jock, I apologize, I do not think you are an airhead. I am also the most unathletic person in the world, so feel free to laugh. Please review, when I get reviews, it makes me happy, which makes me leave more reviews to other fics. Which makes those authors happy, and so on and so forth. So start a chain reaction and leave a review!**


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